


What Was His Name?

by koalathebear



Category: Homeland
Genre: Canon Compliant, Epilogue, Gen, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-16
Updated: 2017-04-16
Packaged: 2018-10-19 13:20:59
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 978
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10640673
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/koalathebear/pseuds/koalathebear
Summary: Book end to 6.12 America First.  Plotless little scribble.My thoughts on the season finale arehere.Also - feeling crap after season 6?  Never, ever under-estimate thetherapeutic power of fan fiction.





	

_I balanced all, brought all to mind,_  
The years to come seemed waste of breath,  
A waste of breath the years behind  
In balance with this life, this death.  
\- An Irish Airman foresees his Death by W.B. Yeats.

The elevator doors slid open.

"Carrie."

The relief is almost overpowering in its violence. "Quinn. Thank God."

"Hurry. This way." He ushers them through the car park urgently. "There's a small army on the streets, snipers up, and we don't know who's friendly." As they approach the car, he stares at her grimly. "Get on top of her."

"Quinn." Carrie's voice is uncertain. Questioning.

"Do what I say," he retorts tersely and for what feels like the first time in her life, Carrie falls in line and obeys the order she's been given.

The engine starts up, the tyres scream loudly as she lies on top of the president, unable to tell if the pounding heartbeat is her own or Keane's. 

She can hear gunfire, voices shouting. "What's happening?" she demands, her voice panicked.

"Stay down."

She can hear gunfire, bullets hitting the windshield insistently before they finally break through, the thick glass shattering. She notes the sickening sound of metal thudding into fragile flesh, followed by low grunts of pain … She wants to speak to him again but as she can feel the car slowing, Quinn's hands losing their control over the steering wheel, she knows what's happened – and what she's going to find …

The car slides to the left and collides almost quietly into a parked car before coming to a standstill.

"Okay, you can get up," she orders the president elect. 

_Are you all right?_

_Oh-- Oh, my God._

She stares at Quinn's face as he sits, slumped lifelessly in the driver's seat, the bright blood splashed across his face and body, the thick red sliding sluggishly from his injuries. She doesn’t need to touch him to know that he's gone … She's seen death too many times before.

"Is-- Is he dead?"

"Yeah," Carrie replies tonelessly, not quite sure what the emotion in her breast is. She guesses it might be grief, but she's grieved before and that pain was nothing compared to this screaming silence and wordless horror building up inside of her.

"He saved our lives."

"Yeah," Carrie agrees, staring blindly as she wonders how many times this makes it. How many times has this man saved her life? Is it wrong that she's lost count – taken it for granted? Doesn’t matter, he'll never do it again. He's gone now, body growing cold and stiff before her eyes …

"Peter Quinn. Peter Quinn," she tells Keane, the siren wailing in the distance. She looks around and sees a crowd approaching, hears the click as the passers-by stand around the car and photograph Quinn's dead body.

"Stand back, please. Stay back from the vehicle," she hears voices say and the president elect staggers out of the car. Carrie opens the driver's door and reaches in, pulling Quinn's body from the seat. "No more photos. Show some fucking respect," she hisses venomously at the strangers who flinch and step back, putting their phones away, shame on their faces at their lurid curiosity.

Quinn's body is heavy and she collapses onto the curb, cradling him in her arms as she stares down at him in disbelief. He's still warm although the flicker … the spark of life that animated him is long gone and his eyes are closed in a pale imitation of sleep.

"You saved her," she whispers to him. "You saved both of us," she tells him. His warm blood stains her clothes and skin … and she recalls a time long ago when he smeared his own blood on her face – to save her.

When the ambulance finally arrives, the paramedics have to pry Quinn's body from her arms, their voices soothing in an attempt to banish the almost crazed expression from her eyes.

*

Quinn's memorial service is almost as depressing and perfunctory as the way his life ended. There's no one there except Saul, Max and … Clarice? Dressed up in her best, looking painfully out of place in the small chapel. Max is clearly drunk, staggering in late, eyes red and wet although he manages to retain composed during the service as the minister intones words of comfort that are entirely platitudinous in their emptiness. Quinn would have been disgusted. 

Fucking bull shit.

"Would anyone like to say a few words?" the minister asks the empty church and Carrie stares down at her hands, clenched in her lap. She can feel the silent judgment of both Saul and Max, staring at her.

In the end, it's Max who staggers up and says a few words … slurred and miserable, but heartfelt nonetheless. 

"Not sure if he felt the same way – but … he was my friend," Max declares emphatically and he drops his head momentarily, his shoulders slumped forward in wordless defeat. They've lost so many people over the years and it is taking its slow, inexorable toll on all of them.

A few muttered words with Saul and then Carrie leaves, eyes tight and sore – not a tear shed as grief tightens in her throat like a fist.

*

"What was his name? His real name?" Carrie asks of Max when they look through the photographs that belonged to the man they've always known as Quinn. 

"We never knew … John was probably just another alias," Max tells her with a shrug as the photograph of Quinn's young son gazes up at them with Quinn's grave, unblinking stare. "Do you want me to contact his … family?" 

Carrie shakes her head emphatically. "I'll do it … not sure when – but I'll do it," she says in a low voice and wipes her eyes.

Max gives her a wry smile. "That sounds like a promise."

Carrie nods. "Yeah. Yeah it is."

****

**fin**


End file.
